Steam freezes in Fedora Linux while downloading a game

rollsicecream · September 23, 2023, 4:04pm

Hello everyone!

Today, I switched from Windows 11 to Fedora Linux. The process is very easy, it just works!

I downloaded my browser, VPN, etc… And then I installed Steam (as an RPM);

When downloading a game (specifically Hearts of Iron IV which is compatible with Linux Ubuntu but it should work with Fedora as well), the Steam UI just freezes alongside the entire system so I cannot go to my browser, quit Steam, moving my mouse, etc… The only way to get back to normal is to force the shutdown by pressing 10-15 seconds to the power button.

I deleted Steam RPM and install instead the Flatpak version of it but it still doesn’t work.

Can anyone help me? Is it Wayland or some other stuff that break it?

Here’s some links that may help me…

github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux

Most of steam is unusably unresponsive

opened 11:10PM - 05 Jul 20 UTC

closed 11:21PM - 09 Jun 23 UTC

codedcosmos

Steam client Web Component

#### Your system information * Steam client version (build number or date): … Clicking Help -> About Steam Reveals Built: Jun 4 2020, at 05:51:01 Steam API: v020 Steam package versions: 1591251555 * Distribution: Arch Linux with kernel 5.7.7-zen1-1-zen Using Gnome-Desktop and a 64 bit system. * Opted into Steam client beta?: No * Have you checked for system updates?: Yes, this issue has persisted through a kernel update as well. * System Specifications: Ryzen 7 1700 16 Gigs of ram Boot SSD AMD RX 570 (I have a spare 1070 that I can use to test if it's AMD related, but i'm currently using it for some machine learning experiments on a different system) #### Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible: Most UI elements take an unexpected amount of time to function. Hovering over the Help text at the top took a couple seconds to highlight it. Clicking it took a couple seconds for the dropdown to appear etc. The library is mostly responsive, and the store is hit or miss. Sometimes windows don't even switch, clicking library often takes quite a long time to load. I went to steam help for an unrelated issue, and typing was impossible. I ended up having to copy paste instead which still took quite a long time. Once I can get to run games, they work perfectly fine. I can run them with the expected framerate, and no other applications on my system have this issue. #### Steps for reproducing this issue: 1) Start steam 2) Attempt to interact with the user interface

github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux

Steam freezes after running for a while

opened 05:43PM - 02 Sep 22 UTC

closed 05:40PM - 06 Jan 23 UTC

Davixxa

Steam client Distro Family: Arch

This is a duplicate of #8717, but I do not think user's solution actually tends …to the underlying problem, as my hardware situation is slightly different, but I encounter pretty much identical problems. #### Your system information * Steam client version (build number or date): 1660960119 * Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Arch Linux * Opted into Steam client beta?: No * Have you checked for system updates?: Yes Specs for good measure: OS: Arch Linux x86_64 Kernel: 5.19.4-arch1-1 DE: Plasma 5.25.4 WM: kwin CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X (12) @ 3.800GHz GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Memory: 16 Gigs of DDR4 at 2400 MHz #### Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible: Describe what you _expected_ should happen and what _did_ happen. Please link any large code pastes as a [Github Gist](https://gist.github.com/) Quoting the origininal user's problem: The Steam client freezes after running for a period of time. The main performance is that all windows of Steam cannot be dragged, and this problem cannot be solved by ending the Steam process. After entering `killall steam` in Konsole, the Steam window still exists and It's stuck and can't start a second Steam process. A `killall -9 steam` will kill it just fine, unlike original user's problem. Steam will freeze together with the running game, which makes my game experience very bad. #### Steps for reproducing this issue: 1. Open Steam (no matter if native or runtime), and let it run. Game independent, and no discernable pattern to the behaviour.

Thanks.

i-write-only-lies · September 23, 2023, 5:21pm

rollsicecream · September 24, 2023, 10:26am

Well, I actually found the solution with this GitHub Issue Comment :

github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux

Steam Freezing while installing games.

opened 01:43PM - 26 Mar 21 UTC

Redbatman89

Steam client

So I think ever since the update for the February 13th release on Tuesday March …23rd may have screwed up my client a bit. Now when I install a game or update the steam client will freeze for a minute randomly then go back to being functional. The games still work and I can play them. But its getting annoying that this is happening now. I have tried shutting down and powering up my computer, installing the new Nvidia Drivers. But that didn't work so I'm thinking its a client issue. Is this happening to anyone else? I'm on POP OS 20.04

Tl:dr: Steam is downloading faster or extracting files after downloading faster than the page cache in RAM gets written onto disk. When the cache is full, Linux switches from non-blocking I/O to blocking I/O, which causes the system to freeze.

Solution: Steam could limit the download speed to file I/O rate and do a regular fsync or some sort of direct write/own caching procedure when downloading/updating apps.

So as a temporary solution, reducing my download speed manually in my Steam settings to 20-40 MB/s helped, also playing around with sysctl settings vm.dirty_*